Paul Kimmage has lodged a criminal complaint against UCI president Pat McQuaid and honorary president Hein Verbruggen.

The UCI, McQuaid and Verbruggen had originally launched a lawsuit against Kimmage but last week suspended defamation proceedings pending the results of an independent report.

Now former rider Kimmage, who has been hugely critical of the UCI leadership's response to doping in cycling, has launched legal proceedings of his own.

Kimmage wrote on Twitter: "I have lodged a criminal complaint against Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid.

"I have initiated these proceedings not for myself - this is not about Paul Kimmage, but on behalf of the whistle blowers - Stephen Swart, Frankie Andreu, Floyd Landis, Christophe Bassons, Nicolas Aubier, Gilles Delion, Graeme Obree and every other cyclist who stood up for truth and the sport they loved and were dismissed as 'cowards' and 'scumbags' by Verbruggen and McQuaid."

A statement released by Kimmage's lawyers, Bonnard Lawson, said the complaint had been lodged with the public prosecutor in the Swiss town of Vevey.

The statement added: "Paul Kimmage complains, among other things, that he was dragged through the mud, that he was called a liar in public and accused in public of committing offences against the honour after he had obtained the publication of an interview by Floyd Landis in which the latter denounced the conduct of the highest officials of the International Cycling Union (UCI)."